soundoff(2 Responses)

William Lindemann

I applaud your efforts and your fellow teachers/support staff. We just can't stop teaching. Keep up your concern, we need more like you.

Unfortunately, as a professor in a major university, I see students entering college that have 2 problems: 1. Unprepared 2. Unwilling to work. Many have the notion that just showing up most of the time earns them a passing grade and what they learn (and can forget as soon as they take the final exam) is just a hoop they must jump through to get a degree. In addition, I have two children that are now in college having come through our local public schools.

What I see in the public school system is too much social preparedness, esteem building, social promotion, etc. and not enough understanding. I see colleges of education full of some of the least motivated and lowest ACT scores at the university. I see teachers in public schools (from my kid's experiences) that can't spell, can't calculate, can't write, etc., but are buddies with students so they get good evaluations. Discipline of students is a shame (coming from teacher administrators, school districts, departments of education at all levels, and the court system). Future teachers take math for teachers (without learning math), writing for teachers (without learning to write), etc. In the early 1980's, students were falling behind in science and math and there was great consternation in the entire education system. More money was thrown at public education, but math and science comprehension continue to decline. I attribute most of the failing of public school to: 1. Lack of parent involvement, 2. Colleges of education and departments of education at all levels who dictate the curriculum of teachers and who can teach.

We built this nation on strong discipline and learning the basics. Current parents, and now their children, didn't have this. I didn't have teacher aids, counselors, nurses, etc. when I went to public school. I did learn the basics and how to use the. If I got out of line, I was punished. A new high school is being built in our school district; they announced who would be the new football coach before they announced who would be principal. My approach: 1. Go back to teaching as we did prior to 1970, keep the good and throw out the bad. 2. Require participation by parents in some form of time commitment. 3. Disband all colleges of education and make a future teacher graduate in a discipline, and then take teacher training courses. Our education system worked at one point without such a high percent of taxes supporting it. The public cannot continue trowing money at a system which obviously doesn't work and continues to decline.

January 27, 2012 at 3:09 pm |

Surthurfurd

Have you seen how low our standards at Universities have gotten while they are still so wrapped up in spending money on sports teams and lovely campuses ?

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